The debate over the term virtual assistant is one that is often discussed online. I have yet to join any discussion regarding this, but  do have quite a strong view on it. To put it simply, I do not like the term “Virtual Assistant”. Even though it is used by both employees and employers, I still personally take some offence to the term.

The reason I dislike it is that the job description of an assistant is often very different too the skill set of the employee, even though they are defined as being a ‘virtual assistant’. If I think about it in it’s traditional context, an assistant is somebody who generally provides support to a manager. In the online world, the same position can exist and therefore be defined as a ‘virtual assistant’.

I have no issue with this job description and this terminology. If someone’s role is to assist their employer in general tasks, administration, secretarial type duties, or by following processes, then this is an accurate terminology to describe them. They basically are an assistant working in a virtual environment.

Most of my team are highly skilled web developers and graphic designers. These are people who have invested time, resource, and many years into perfecting the skill that they have chosen to pursue. Whether they share this view with me or not, I actually take offence on behalf of my team when somebody refers to them as my ‘virtual assistants’. I do not belittle an assistant role in any way, and I do have assistants of my own and therefore highly value their contribution to my work and to my team.

However, when it comes to discussing my team and putting terminology to their role or their employment status, I don’t refer to them as virtual assistants. Instead, I refer to them by the skill set or the career they have chosen. I have web developers, graphic designers, administration assistants, video editors and SEO specialists just to name a few.

I do not place everybody into the category of virtual assistant – sure they work for me virtually and we operate in a virtual environment, however they are not assistants. I am not a programmer, so therefore a PHP programmer cannot assist me in those tasks. They are however responsible for the programming aspects of the projects that we work on.

This is just my personal view and it is not wrong to title people ‘virtual assistants’, nor is it discriminatory in any way. I just prefer to honour people for the skills that they have.

I’m interested to know your thoughts. Do you call your team ‘virtual assistants’, or do you give them a title that reflects their skills and experience?